Cablevision To Pitch Sports How-To VOD

Cablevision-owned Rainbow Sports is starting up a sports-instruction video-on-demand service, Sportskool, for athletes and wannabe athletes. It will provide videos for kids and adults looking to pick up a new sport or refine their skills and will also advise on coaching youth sports like baseball and soccer.

Sportskool, slated to launch in the fourth quarter, will have 20 hours of content for 10 sports that rotate by season. The sports will range from mainstream favorites like basketball and golf to up-and-coming action sports like BMX and snowboarding. Some content, like fitness, will be updated daily; the rest will be refreshed weekly.

Cablevision already has one VOD service in Mag Rack, which offers programming on specific topics from fly-fishing to yoga.

But, instead of being part of Mag Rack, said Dan Ronayne, senior vice president of marketing and communications for Rainbow Sports, Sportskool deserved its own service. "The dollars spent in this category demands this. Our goal is not just to be a VOD service but to be the source for sports instruction."

Whether Sportskool is free VOD or comes at a charge will be up to individual MSOs. The service hasn't signed any carriage deals yet, but Senior Vice President of Distribution and Development Brent Chapman says the network should close some deals soon.